Satine faintly recalled the sight of the medic droids scurrying about around her. They spoke, but to her or each other she couldn't tell. The words were blurred and insignificant compared through the pain tearing through her abdomen. She couldn't tell, either, if her confused state of being meant that she had been medicated or had lost consciousness. The way her head felt, the latter seemed the more likely of the two. She did not notice the medic at her side until she felt the pressure of the nurse's hand on her arm.

"M'lady, try and stay with us," the nurse spoke calmly.

"What…what has happened?" Satine asked, finding her own voice to be weak and strange to her own ears.

"It's coming," the nurse explained, letting slip the slightest tone of worry that she worked to conceal, "Earlier than we expected."

It took a moment for the words to register, but, as they set in, her heart rate rose and her breathing shallowed.

"No!" she began to panic, "Not yet! It can't….I need...need more time!"

"Please, try and relax," came a mechanical, pre-programmed voice at her other side.

She did not care to look to find the droid, for none of the medics could possibly understand the risks Satine was taking.

After this, she could remember movement; she was moved on a lift-bed to another room. Then, there was pain beyond what she could ever recall, coupled with muffled screams and the blurred shapes of the medics moving about in a terrible rush. The world seemed to go black around her. The pain and the noise faded away with it. After what felt like an eternity or the blink of an eye, a sound cut through the blackness. She could hear a cry that seemed to wrench her heart; it was the cry of a small child, likely an infant. Satine willed her eyes to open as the world slipped back into place around her bit by bit. Within a minute or so, her senses sharpened to their normal height and she felt a dull, miserable ache in her body replace the numbness. Taking in the room around her, she discovered that she was in a medical room, set up in her private home. Around her were the medic droids that she had heard, carefully going about an unknown task. At the foot of the bed where she laid unable to move, stood the human nurse who had spoken to her before. The sound of the wailing child emanated from a bundle in the nurse's arms. Realization struck once more: her child. The child wasn't due for at least a few weeks more, yet...here it was. The nurse, blissfully unaware of the turmoil in Satine's mind, turned toward the new mother.

"It's a girl, M'lady," the nurse spoke warmly, with a smile growing on her face.

The nurse, spotting Satine's attempt to sit up further, pressed a control panel on the side of the bed with her free hand, before the top third of the bed angled up to a better position.

"Would you like to hold her?"

"Yes."

The reply was weak and hoarse, suggesting that the earlier screams that she had heard came from her own voice. That did not matter. The pain and confusion faded into memory as she moved on to what did matter: the small creature now bundled and safe in her weakened arms. As she silently held the child, the crying stopped and the red and tearstained face of her new daughter calmed to look curiously upwards. Satine gently wiped the tears off of her daughter's face, knowing in the back of her mind that it would not be the last time she did so. She found her tired voice once more.

"Everything is going to be alright," she hushed the child, working also to convince herself of the lie.

"She seems rather happy to see you. Calm and curious little thing," the nurse beamed cheerfully, "What will you call her, M'lady?"

Satine looked down into the large curious eyes. They were a brilliant blue-green and Satine knew where she had seen those very eyes many times before. The baby had her father's eyes. She swallowed the pain that rose within her chest, and looked away from a painful memory toward the possibility of a brand new future, if not for her than for her child.

"Nadine." she hummed gently, allowing a stray tear to fall down her pale face, "Nadine Kryze."

For hours, Satine sat and held her child, staring into the innocent face. The sleeping infant was the brightest light that Satine had in her life. Her world seemed to be constantly at odds, always fighting and struggling for power and survival. The threat to her own life seemed to grow with each passing year, as the young Duchess tried to lead her people to the best of her power. Yet, here her daughter laid, safe and unaware of the troubled Galaxy beyond her mother's arms. Safe. Satine thought on the word.

Safe was in short supply. It wasn't in the nature of Mandalore to be safe, and it certainly wasn't in the people's history. Whatever safety they had now, rested in keeping the world from tearing itself apart.

"I...I do not know what powers there are out there," she stuttered softly, hoping someone or something would hear her, "But...if there is a power in the galaxy, I beg you, keep my child safe. Never let her be alone. What strength is in her is not from me. Please…"

Tears fell gently onto the blanket surrounding the only family the Duchess had left now. It was unlikely that they would stop falling anytime soon, as the mother wept over what she believed was her last hope.

It had been weeks since the birth of her first and only child, Satine recalled as she walked along the halls, clutching her sleeping daughter to her chest. She was quickly running out of time, as she feared she would. With no husband, questions about the child would be inevitable for her. The truth was nothing she could not overcome, yet she knew that revealing it put the child's father in great jeopardy. She simply was not willing to force that on him. He carried enough of the burdens of others. Many times, she considered contacting him, telling him of their child, but she simply could not bear the consequences of that action on her already heavy heart. The answer was obvious to her. He would come to her and the baby and try to make it right, no matter what it cost him. He was a good man and he would never even hesitate. Satine knew, however, that she could never ask him to walk away from the only life that he had, the one he always had. It simply was unfair. Satine would simply have to face this challenge alone. Not entirely alone, she thought as the child gurgled tiredly, waking up. She would have Nadine. Questions could be avoided for now, as long as the child remained out of the public eye. She told herself that it was better for the child that way, kept away from all of the pain and trouble that the world, and those beyond it, caused. This child would be raised in a palace with a loving mother. That was not such a terrible fate, after all.

Years seemed to pass far too quickly. With each year, as the Duchess feared, new dangers grew. There had been a droid invasion of one of the Galactic Republic's allied planets years before, but it was short lived and far from her own system. She had thought nothing of it; however, that was before her daughter. Now, she kept a close watch on the troubles of the Republic that might, one day, reach Mandalore. For now, nothing came of this separatist attack. Still wary of the Trade Federation's treachery, as well as many other dangers, the Duchess had claimed neutrality over her system and its people. If fighting ever did break out, she would have none of it. Satine would risk no harm to her people or her family!

"Mama…" a small voice turned her from her thoughts.

She turned to see her loyal handmaiden, and Nadine's nurse and caretaker, Talla, standing in the doorframe holding Nadine. The little girl eagerly reached her small, chubby hands out toward her mother.

"I know you were not to be disturbed, ma'am," Talla explained, "But she seemed desperate to see you."

"That's quite alright," Satine smiled wearily, "She always seems to know when I'm upset and could use the company."

Satine gracefully took the young girl into her own arms, as she had done a hundred times before, and smiled warmly at Nadine.

"Upset, my lady? Is there something wrong?"

"The same things as are always wrong, Talla," she sighed, "But it is nothing we have not overcome before. No matter what storms come to us from the stars, we will get through it as we have always done."

She placed a gentle kiss to Nadine's forehead.

"Together."